A moment later the street gleamed with golden light as a mob of the burning dead came into sight.
Ark realized that he had made the right decision. The golden dead were sprinting, and if he had kept marching to the Agora of Archons, the dead would have struck the middle of the column. The Guards and the ashtairoi might have been scattered, or pinned in place until the tide of golden dead rising from the harbor trapped them.
Now they just had to defeat the smaller group of burning dead before the rest attacked.
Ark hoped the Guards and the ashtairoi were up to the task.
“Hold!” he shouted, pointing with his sword as the wall of golden flame and gibbering, reanimated flesh.
###
Kylon braced himself, drawing upon the sorcery of air for speed and the sorcery of water for strength.
The golden dead charged the shield wall. They did not bother with tactics or formations. They charged in a single solid mass, a tide of fists and golden fire. Through the power of water sorcery, he sensed the emotions of the reborn men and women, and felt nothing but insane, mindless fury. If Talekhris was right, the dead had been reborn without their souls and minds, and were nothing but animal impulses and fury.
Like maddened animals, lashing out at everything around them in their pain.
Was this what the Moroaica had truly wanted? A world filled with such creatures?
“Magi!” bellowed Ark, and Kylon had no more time for contemplation.
He drew on the sorcery of air and jumped, the power of his leap carrying him over the heads of the Imperial Guards and the ashtairoi. Several of the battle magi also jumped, black swords and maces in hand. Kylon landed in the midst of the charging dead, his sword a silvery blur, and destroyed three of them before they could react.
His sword thrummed with Talekhris’s alien sorcery. All his instincts demanded that he call upon the sorcery of water to sheathe his weapon in a freezing mist, but Talekhris’s power allowed Kylon to destroy the golden dead with a single scratch of his blade. No need to behead the golden dead or hew off their legs at the knees – breaking the skin was enough for the silver light to cancel the sorcery reanimating them.
But even Talekhris’s sorcery could not keep the dead from rising again. For every one of the burning dead Kylon struck down would rise again within moments.
A ripple went through the mob of corpses as four battle magi crashed into them, wielding swords and maces glowing with silver light. The battle magi used cruder spells than the stormsingers and stormdancers of New Kyre, relying upon raw psychokinetic force to enhance their strength and speed. Yet Kylon had to admit they were effective. The battle magi tore through the burning dead, the touch of their glowing weapons breaking the sorcery upon the living corpses.
Yet more and more of the creatures charged, and Kylon and the battle magi kept fighting. Soon the solid mass had been broken into ragged bands of golden dead, the street carpeted with deformed corpses.
Ark’s voice boomed over the melee. The man did indeed have the voice of a centurion.
“Back to the lines!” thundered Ark. “Prepare to receive the charge!”
Kylon heard the clang as the Guards and the ashtairoi raised their weapons. He turned, struck down two more of the burning dead, and sprinted back toward the waiting soldiers. A burst of air sorcery, and he leaped over their heads and landed behind the lines. Thalastre was waiting for him, fear on her face, but her expression calmed once she saw him returned safe.
But if they could not find and stop the Moroaica, no one would be safe.
The burning dead came at the waiting Guards and ashtairoi.
###
“Strike at will!” said Ark.
He stood in the line with the other men of the Guard, shield raised, sword drawn back. The golden dead came in ragged waves, thanks to Kylon and the battle magi. Ark lowered his shield and thrust, and his storm-forged sword pierced the shoulder of a burning corpse. The dead man collapsed, the fires in his eyes and hands winking out. Around him the golden dead crashed into the shield wall, trying to pursue the stormdancer and the battle magi that had slain so many of them.
They found the swords of the Imperial Guards instead.
The ashtairoi closed from the flanks, stabbing with their spears. Soon the golden dead were enclosed in three sides. The burning corpses tried to break out, but the lines of swordsmen and spearmen stood fast, and soon bodies littered the street.
And then it was over.
Ark lowered his sword, breathing hard, sweat dripping down his face and his arms heavy with fatigue. All of the burning dead had been killed. Or destroyed. Or only stunned until enough of the golden fire gathered in their bodies to resurrect them. Already he saw glimmers of golden flame pooling in their unseeing eyes and dancing around their fingers.
They would not have long before all of the golden dead rose again.
“Back to the main avenue,” said Ark. “We…”
“Champion!”
Ark turned, ran back to the main avenue, and saw the dark tide coming towards them.
###
Caina stared at the harbor in horrified fascination.
A sea of nightmares washed toward them.
Most of the golden dead in the Agora and the streets had been killed in the chaos of Sicarion’s attack upon the Emperor, by the stampedes and riots. They had not been dead for very long, and their bodies had suffered minimal damage. The phoenix fire had not needed to do much to resurrect them.
The dead from the sea were different.
Some of them had been dead for centuries, had been nothing more than long-crumbled bones. It would take tremendous amounts of phoenix fire to rebuild their bodies.
And just as happened with Sinan in Malarae, there had been…errors in the reconstruction.
Creatures of nightmare lumbered, crawled, slithered, and hopped up the avenue. Some looked still recognizably human, but with pale, glistening flesh and misshapen, distorted limbs. Others were far worse. Caina saw a creature with fifteen heads, all of them screaming and hooting, pulling itself along with five arms. A woman had three arms sprouting from her neck, her head bulging from her belly, eyes rolling back and forth in horror. One man looked like a grotesque centipede, dozens of legs sprouting from his misshapen belly. Still others looked like creatures beyond human conception, hideous amalgamations of flesh and organs and bones fused together at random.
“Gods, gods,” said Lord Titus. Even the stout old lord looked shaken. “What are they?”
“The future,” said Caina, “if we do not stop the Moroaica.”
A world of mindless, empty creatures, preying endlessly upon each other, dying and rising and again and again, growing more terrible with every death. Could this horror truly have been what Jadriga intended? Caina could not believe it even of the Moroaica. Perhaps Horemb’s spirit had been right, perhaps Jadriga no longer had the power to change, and would continue her course until these devils filled the world.
Or perhaps the gate over the Pyramid would expand until it ripped the world apart.
That seemed almost merciful now.
“Lord Champion,” said one of the scouts, “they come in great numbers from the sea!”
“Run!” said Ark. “All of you, run for the Agora of Archons, now! Make for the base of the Pyramid of Storm. Form up in defensive lines when you get there. We’ll have to protect the Sage long enough for him and the Ghosts to kill with this mad sorceress. Move, damn you! Move!”
The Guards and the ashtairoi sprinted for the Pyramid, urging along the nobles of the Assembly and the Empire. Alexius Naerius ran faster than Caina would have expected, though given how often assassins had come for the Emperor, he must have had to run for his life for than once.
She shot a glance back at the horde of mindless horrors surging after them.
Fear made for a marvelous motivator.
A few moments later they reached the Agora of Archons, the golden dead in pursuit.
The Agora
was vast, the proud ziggurats of the Kyracian Houses ringing it on three sides. It was also deserted – Caina hoped the people of New Kyre had taken safety behind closed doors.
The Pyramid of Storm rose on the far end of the Agora. It looked like a man-made mountain, its terraced sides covered in statues and small shrines. Caina had read that only the greatest heroes of the Kyracian people received statues or tombs upon its side. Once it had been topped with the Sanctuary of the Surge, where the Surge used her visions to guide New Kyre. Now the Sanctuary was gone, only a pile of broken stone atop the Pyramid. Likely Jadriga had killed the oracle and her priestesses.
The gate to the netherworld screamed overhead, a writhing vortex of golden fire. Just looking at it gave Caina a terrible sense of vertigo. A slender crystalline spire rose from the top of the Pyramid and pierced the gate. It was made of ice, and Caina saw the faint marks of a stairwell winding its way around the spire.
Perhaps that was good. If Jadriga had already entered the netherworld, then Caina had a chance of killing her and ending this madness.
Assuming that Jadriga simply did not kill them all on sight.
They reached the base of the Pyramid, and Ark barked orders. He moved the Emperor and the nobles too old to fight to the Pyramid’s second terrace, out of easy reach of the golden dead. Everyone else formed up at the base of the stairs leading to the Pyramid’s crest, Imperial Guards waiting in orderly lines, ashtairoi ready with sword and spear. The magi began working their spells, as did the stormsingers.
The silver glow faded from their weapons.
“I must go,” said Talekhris, lowering his silver rod. “The Moroaica has already entered the netherworld.”
“We’ll have a devil of a time without your sorcery,” said Ark.
“I know, and I am sorry for it,” said Talekhris. “But if I can kill the Moroaica, you will have no further need for my help.”
“Perhaps we can be of assistance,” said Thalastre. “The touch of frost, though not as effective as the Sage’s spells, seemed to temporarily quench the golden fire. If the other stormsingers and I spread an aura of frost to your weapons, it will at least give you some advantage.”
“I will take whatever aid I can,” said Ark.
Caina looked at Corvalis and Talekhris. “We have to go. The longer we delay, the more people will die.”
Corvalis nodded. “Lead on.”
Caina tightened her grip on the ghostsilver dagger and started running up the stairs, Corvalis and Talekhris following.
###
Ark turned as the Imperial Guards and the ashtairoi arranged themselves in formation.
The burning dead poured into the Agora of Archons.
There were thousands of them, all of them wreathed in golden flame. Some still looked mostly human, and had likely been killed in the attack. But the deformed creatures from the sea outnumbered them tenfold.
“So many of them,” murmured Thalastre.
Ark and Kylon shared a look. He had thought it odd that Caina had spoken highly of the stormdancer after the incidents in Catekharon and Caer Magia. She hated sorcerers, and if given her will, would have killed every last brother and sister of the Magisterium in the Empire.
But after seeing Kylon fight, Ark understood her respect.
“Do you think we can win, husband?” said Thalastre, her voice low so the others would not hear.
Kylon shrugged. “No. But we don’t need to win. We need only to delay.” He looked at Ark. “If anyone can deal with the Moroaica, it is the Ghost.”
“She killed her once before,” said Ark.
“Lord Champion.” Claudia approached, Martin following her. “The other magi and I can distribute our warding spells over the line. It shall not be much, I fear. But it will give the men some protection.”
“As I told Lady Thalastre,” said Ark, “I will take any advantage I can get. Best to begin now. Looks like the golden dead shall pay us a visit at any moment.”
Thalastre and Claudia went to the stormsingers and the magi, and Kylon strode to join the stormdancers and the battle magi. Ark lifted his sword and went to the front of the battle line. The mass of golden dead charged toward the Pyramid, a sea of deformed flesh and brilliant golden fire. Perhaps the rift over the Pyramid drew them as moths to a lantern’s flame.
Ark raised his sword, braced himself, and prepared to fight.
And, most likely, to die.
Chapter 21 - The Gate of Hell
The presence of overwhelming sorcery washed over Caina with every step she took.
She gritted her teeth and pressed on. The aura of power radiating from the apex of the Pyramid of Storm was bad, at least as bad as the aura she had sensed from the Ascendant Bloodcrystal in Caer Magia. Caina’s bones vibrated with every step, needles crawling up and down her skin, her stomach clenching and her head throbbing. The wind howled around the Pyramid, and from time to time she felt a tremor go through the massive stone structure.
That alarmed her further. Jadriga had stolen the Staff of the Elements from the Tower of Study in Catekharon, a staff that had the power to awaken the great elemental lords. If Ranarius had awakened the great elemental sleeping in the Stone of Cyrioch, it would have destroyed all of Cyrioch.
What would happen to the world if Jadriga woke them all at once?
Anyone who survived the golden dead would perish in the earthquakes and firestorms and hurricanes unleashed by the awakened elementals. Was that was Jadriga wanted? The Moroaica had often spoken of destroying the world and remaking it anew, of rebuilding it without pain and suffering. Did she think to lay the world waste, that the golden dead would kill each other over and over again until they were perfected?
Was she really that mad?
Or had she fooled herself?
The philosophical considerations could wait. Caina pushed on, climbing the steep stairs as fast as she could manage, Corvalis keeping close pace behind her.
A few moments later they reached the Pyramid’s apex, and Caina looked at the wreckage of the Sanctuary of the Surge. Once, she suspected, it had crowned the entire top of the Pyramid. Now only a few broken walls remained, and a delicate spire of ice rose from the ruins. It stabbed upwards, rising a thousand feet over the Pyramid, and vanished into the maelstrom of the gate.
A set of stairs wound their way around the spire.
“Quite a climb,” said Corvalis. Talekhris pulled himself up the last step, rubbing his bad leg.
“Aye,” said Caina, “but we have to make it now. Jadriga must have used it to enter the gate. Just as well for us that she did not destroy it behind her.”
“She saw no need. She believes her victory is assured.”
Caina had never heard a voice like it.
It sounded like the voices of three women speaking at once, one old, one young, and one in the prime of her life. Was it a trick of Jadriga’s? Caina turned, her dagger ready, and Corvalis adjusted his grip on the ghostsilver spear.
“No,” said Talekhris, “no, she’s no threat. Don’t attack.”
A woman in a plain robe stepped around the pillar of ice, her gray hair blowing in the wind whipping past the Pyramid. She looked about middle-aged, but her eyes glowed with silver light.
“Who are you?” said Caina, but she already suspected the answer.
“I am called the Surge,” said the woman, “for I see the storm of the world, and the path it shall take. The Bringer of Ashes has unleashed the great darkness, and ruin shall engulf the world. Yet there is a chance the course of the storm can yet be turned. For you are the Balarigar, and you have come.”
“The Balarigar is a myth,” said Caina, though she had exploited that myth from time to time.
The Surge offered an eerie smile. “Then why are you here?”
“Enough,” said Caina. She looked at the Agora a thousand feet below, saw Ark and Kylon and the Imperial Guards locked in combat with the monstrous golden dead. “Why didn’t the Moroaica kill you?”
Wha
t if the Surge now housed the Moroaica’s spirit? It was the sort of trick Jadriga might try to play, if she feared Talekhris’s power.
“Because I was no threat to her,” said the Surge. “My mantle of power permits me to observe events, to see the path the storm of the world might take. Not to interfere with the course of events.”
“She is right,” said Talekhris. “The Surge will observe, never interfere.”
“Then she’s not the Moroaica?” said Corvalis. He must have come to the same conclusion as Caina.
“No,” said Talekhris, his jade mask glinting in the golden flame dancing overhead. “She is who she says that she is.”
“Fine,” said Caina. “If you cannot interfere, than perhaps you can share your observations.”
“I shall,” said the Surge. “You are the last hope. Already the darkness swallows this world. Unless you stop the Moroaica, she will triumph, and destroy the world in her rage.”
“She’s up there, isn’t she?” said Caina, pointing at the rift. “She opened that gate into the netherworld and then climbed up the spire of ice?”
“You are correct,” said the Surge. “Already her great work unfolds. The lords of the elementals wake from their long sleep, and the fires of the phoenix ashes spread to every corpse in the world, raising them to a twisted mockery of life. The Moroaica’s vision is to destroy the world and remake it. Already it is begins…but the world she creates will be far different than the perfect world she envisions.”
“The golden dead,” said Caina. The sounds of battle drifted up from the Agora below. “She thinks they’ll…improve, somehow? That they’ll regenerate until they’ve recovered their memories and their souls return?”
“Yes,” said the Surge, all three of her voices full of sorrow. “But they will not. The Moroaica’s heart is frozen, her ability to change her choice taken from her by death. She will continue until she is destroyed, or the world is destroyed around her.”
Jonathan Moeller - The Ghosts 09 - Ghost in the Surge Page 24
